Facebook is rolling out the ability to send private messages with stickers — cute, pre-made, sometimes animated images — from its website. Facebook launched stickers on mobile in mid-April, but now the web chat smiley button reveals a basket leading to the web sticker store where you can choose from 16 free packs to add to your repertoire. Stickers could keep Facebook users from straying to other messaging mediums.

However, Facebook’s sticker progress could slow down. I’ve learned that Sophie Xie, the designer who started the Facebook stickers initiative at a hackathon and was their product designer and art director, has just left the company. Stickers for the web was one of her final contributions, which is why she appears in the screenshots below sent out by Facebook PR. Xie had only been with Facebook since 2012 but her departure is a significant loss for the company, whose stickers…